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EDITORS’ NOTES

Roy Ayers was on a creative hot streak when he released Mystic Voyage, the second LP he put out in 1975. He maintained the searching, moody quality that had marked all his previous work, but the influence of funk acts like Parliament, Sly Stone, and Earth, Wind & Fire became more noticeable. “Funky Motion,” “Spirit of Doo Do," and “Life Is Just a Moment” are led by a beautifully fat bass sound; these songs would be at home pouring from the back of some gangster’s trunk sound system, right next to Parliament’s “P. Funk (Wants to Get Funked Up).” At the same time, Ayers’ vibraphone-led arrangements stand in their own world. Even though it was a relatively simple instrumental, “Mystic Voyage” can easily be identified as an Ayers original, simply because it exudes his trademark sultry but intricate atmosphere. This album also marked the introduction of a key player into the Ubiquity family. The songbird Chicas takes vocals on “A Wee Bit” and “Take All the Time You Need,” an exquisite human presence at a time when most female singers were trying to be larger than life.

Mystic Voyage

EDITORS’ NOTES

Roy Ayers was on a creative hot streak when he released Mystic Voyage, the second LP he put out in 1975. He maintained the searching, moody quality that had marked all his previous work, but the influence of funk acts like Parliament, Sly Stone, and Earth, Wind & Fire became more noticeable. “Funky Motion,” “Spirit of Doo Do," and “Life Is Just a Moment” are led by a beautifully fat bass sound; these songs would be at home pouring from the back of some gangster’s trunk sound system, right next to Parliament’s “P. Funk (Wants to Get Funked Up).” At the same time, Ayers’ vibraphone-led arrangements stand in their own world. Even though it was a relatively simple instrumental, “Mystic Voyage” can easily be identified as an Ayers original, simply because it exudes his trademark sultry but intricate atmosphere. This album also marked the introduction of a key player into the Ubiquity family. The songbird Chicas takes vocals on “A Wee Bit” and “Take All the Time You Need,” an exquisite human presence at a time when most female singers were trying to be larger than life.

TITLE

TIME

Brother Green (The Disco King)

Roy Ayers Ubiquity

5:43

Mystic Voyage

Roy Ayers Ubiquity

3:41

A Wee Bit

Roy Ayers Ubiquity

2:48

Take All the Time You Need

Roy Ayers Ubiquity

5:38

Evolution

Roy Ayers Ubiquity

4:36

Life Is Just a Moment, Pt. 1

Roy Ayers Ubiquity

4:08

Life Is Just a Moment, Pt. 2

Roy Ayers Ubiquity

2:34

Funky Motion

Roy Ayers Ubiquity

3:19

Spirit of Doo Do

Roy Ayers Ubiquity

6:00

The Black Five

Roy Ayers Ubiquity

3:57

10 Songs

℗ 1975 The Verve Music Group, a Division of UMG Recordings, Inc.

About Roy Ayers

Once one of the most visible and winning jazz vibraphonists of the 1960s, then an R&B bandleader in the 1970s and '80s, Roy Ayers' reputation s now that of one of the prophets of acid jazz, a man decades ahead of his time. A tune like 1972's "Move to Groove" by the Roy Ayers Ubiquity has a crackling backbeat that serves as the prototype for the shuffling hip-hop groove that became, shall we say, ubiquitous on acid jazz records; and his relaxed 1976 song "Everybody Loves the Sunshine" has been frequently sampled. Yet Ayers' own playing has always been rooted in hard bop: crisp, lyrical, rhythmically resilient. His own reaction to being canonized by the hip-hop crowd as the "Icon Man" is tempered with the detachment of a survivor in a rough business. "I'm having fun laughing with it," he has said. "I don't mind what they call me, that's what people do in this industry."

Growing up in a musical family -- his father played trombone, his mother taught him the piano -- the five-year-old Ayers was given a set of vibe mallets by Lionel Hampton, but didn't start on the instrument until he was 17. He got involved in the West Coast jazz scene in his early 20s, recording with Curtis Amy (1962), Jack Wilson (1963-1967), and the Gerald Wilson Orchestra (1965-1966); and playing with Teddy Edwards, Chico Hamilton, Hampton Hawes and Phineas Newborn. A session with Herbie Mann at the Lighthouse in Hermosa Beach led to a four-year gig with the versatile flutist (1966-1970), an experience that gave Ayers tremendous exposure and opened his ears to styles of music other than the bebop that he had grown up with.

After being featured prominently on Mann's hit Memphis Underground album and recording three solo albums for Atlantic under Mann's supervision, Ayers left the group in 1970 to form the Roy Ayers Ubiquity, which recorded several albums for Polydor and featured such players as Sonny Fortune, Billy Cobham, Omar Hakim, and Alphonse Mouzon. An R&B-jazz-rock band influenced by electric Miles Davis and the Herbie Hancock Sextet at first, the Ubiquity gradually shed its jazz component in favor of R&B/funk and disco. Though Ayers' pop records were commercially successful, with several charted singles on the R&B charts for Polydor and Columbia, they became increasingly, perhaps correspondingly, devoid of musical interest.

In the 1980s, besides leading his bands and recording, Ayers collaborated with Nigerian musician Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, formed Uno Melodic Records, and produced and/or co-wrote several recordings for various artists. As the merger of hip-hop and jazz took hold in the early '90s, Ayers made a guest appearance on Guru's seminal Jazzmatazz album in 1993 and played at New York clubs with Guru and Donald Byrd. Though most of his solo records had been out of print for years, Verve issued a two-CD anthology of his work with Ubiquity and the first U.S. release of a live gig at the 1972 Montreux Jazz Festival; the latter finds the group playing excellent straight-ahead jazz, as well as jazz-rock and R&B. ~ Richard S. Ginell